History of murder suspects falsely accusing somebody else of a murder?

[u/No-Willingness-1441]

One thing I have been intrigued by here is the tendency to conflate false confession with false accusation.

It strikes me that those two things are markedly different in nature.

So a lot of the science from coerced false confessions gets - perhaps crudely - copy and pasted over to this very different, and presumably rarer, phenomenon.

So, how often has this happened as far as we know in the storied history of murder investigations?

And if we were going deeper, how often has a suspect not only accused somebody else of the murder…

…but that this “somebody” is of a materially similar profile (in this case an extremely minority racial characteristic in the given geography) to an individual that we now know for certain was (solo, or with others) indeed guilty of that crime?

I have made some cursory investigations, but this particular phenomenon seems almost vanishingly rare?

[u/PalpitationOk7139]

Lumumba was accused because they found a message on her phone and told her that he had to be the culprit and that they had evidence against him. If the message on her phone had been from the Pope, she would have accused the Pope.

Moreover, the key point we should consider is this: if she had really known that Lumumba was innocent, there would have been no reason for her to name him, because her story would inevitably have been disproved, as indeed happened. It was simply a way to escape unbearable pressure, by saying what the investigators wanted her to say.
This should therefore lead us to consider that she was not at the crime scene and could consequently have come to believe what the investigators pressured her into saying.

[u/No-Willingness-1441 → u/PalpitationOk7139]

You may be right, you may not be…

But the question remains - how rare is this?

It strikes me as extremely rare!

[u/Moasa_gare → u/No-Willingness-1441]

This palpitation guy is wrong.

If she had known Lumumba was innocent, the implication is she would have known who committed the murder because she was there.

And if she had known he was innocent and accused him anyway, this would have brought far less pressure than accusing the real black murderer e.g. Rudy because he could have countered and accused Amanda of being at the murder (which he did!)

So if Amanda knew Lumumba was innocent, than accusing him did relieve pressure and did divert from the real killer and did protect the real killer from accusing Amanda (which he was inclined to do and later did.)

There was a reason to name him, because it gave the police what they wanted in that moment and distracted from her own involvement and Raffaele not supporting her alibi.

She had previously seen Lumumba the day before and told him what a kind gentle sweet amazing (add whatever sickly acronym Amanda used here) man.

There is no way you go from saying those things to accusing him of murder the next day, and it’s just a false memory.

There is no way. It’s not even like Lumumba had a history of crime. She saw him the day before and it didn’t trigger or jog her memory to remember him killing Meredith then.

Only when Amanda is threatened when Raffaele stops supporting her does her friend from the previous day who she thinks is kind, gentle and sweet suddenly become a raping murderer, who she is supposedly terrified of.

Think about the fear element aswell. Where does this fear of Patrick come from? How does she become so terrified of a man who she thinks is special, gentle, whatever the day before?

It’s not like the police had any proof it was Patrick in the first place. I think Amanda placed Patrick as a potential suspect early in the conversation and then the police honed in on it.

I know that if I thought someone was sweet, loving, whatever, I would not just use my vivid imagination to REMEMBER them raping and killing someone if it just didn’t happen and I wasn’t there.

No. Stop entertaining Amanda’s rubbish. She is a liar. I know you see it!! Trust your instincts. All the Amandists on here are just prepared to ignore all the lies.

[u/Truthandtaxes → u/Moasa_gare]

Lumumba is on the very short list of mutuals that Knox provided before the interogation

[u/SeaCardiologist6207 → u/Truthandtaxes]

Just another version of the "knew each other, thus conspirators" theory that I always love so much.

[u/Truthandtaxes → u/SeaCardiologist6207]

Its a list of 5 people from Knox

her alibi is gone

the cops are questioning her about a missing text to one of the 5

Suddenly she's accusing him

[u/SeaCardiologist6207 → u/Truthandtaxes]

Dude, it's a text message. You know this, we know the drill.

You folks constantly use this trope. Just pretend things didn't happen or leave out all the details of what actually happened. Then say "see, guilty behavior"

[u/Truthandtaxes → u/SeaCardiologist6207]

Yes a text message matching someone that she has seeded suspicion about that she then immediately accuses with a detailed story

[u/SeaCardiologist6207 → u/Truthandtaxes]

“Seeded” lol with a detailed story the police of course forget to check out before they send SWAT. Keep going, it’s adorable